What's Christmas without a festive Christmas morning breakfast? Morning is the best part of Christmas and there must be a special breakfast. So let's have some spinach pancakes! YAY! Spinach... WHAT?!OK, they don't taste like spinach, but they're green and Christmassy! And they're even more Christmassy when you make Christmas Tree Pancakes using a metal cookie cutter.

These pancakes were very fluffy and light, and a little bit of a pain to make because I only have one non-plastic tree-shaped cookie cutter. I threw some blueberries on top, but red cranberries or pomegranate seeds would look so festive on the green trees!

1- Whisk dry ingredients together.
2- In a blender, combine the clementine juice and frozen spinach and blend until smooth.
3- Strain the spinach/clementine mix into a small mixing bowl and discard the solids that are left in the strainer..
4- Add the soy milk, oil, and vanilla to the spinach mix, and whisk all wet ingredients together.
5- Add the liquids to the dry mix and stir until smooth.
6- Lightly coat a nonstick skillet with cooking spray and preheat.
7- Spray the inside of your Christmas tree cookie cutters with cooking spray and place it on the hot skillet. From now on you should use tongs to handle the hot cookie cutters!
8- Using a large cookie scoop, pour a scoopful of batter inside the cookie cutter and cook over low-medium heat until the bottoms are barely golden.
9- Carefully and using your tongs, pull the cookie cutter up. If you didn't spray it enough, you might need to use a knife to help you separate the edges from the cookie cutter.
10- Flip the pancake over and cook until the other side turns barely golden .

The next Christmas inspired recipe is called "Strawberry Santa Hats", because "Santa's Berries" just doesn't seem very appropriate.

These are little cake squares, with buttercream and strawberry hats. I wanted to make a dense cake using coconut milk (recipe below), but you can use any cake recipe or you can even use cupcakes or cookies instead of cake. Ooh, chocolate shortbread would be perfect!

Anyway, once your cake has cooled down to room temperature, cut it into squares and use a pastry bag to squeeze out a buttercream circle right in the middle of each square. Be generous with the buttercream, you should have a circle that is a little bigger than the base of a strawberry. The whole circle should be filled with buttercream to end up with a nice frosting base.

Place a washed and trimmed (and dry!) strawberry on top of each buttercream base and gently squeeze it down so the buttercream spreads out all around the bottom of the strawberry. Finally, squeeze out a little "pom pom" of buttercream on the tip of each strawberry.

I'm trying to do the EXACT opposite of you!! I'm trying to LOSE weight. It sucks because its so f___ing hard. Maybe since I'm becoming a vegetarian, it won't be so hard. I won't be eating meat and all that fat so maybe that will help me! And I'll be getting a lot of fiber in my diet and all that good stuff!! Especially now since I've developed a love for black bean "burgers!!!"

I knew once I saw the name of the post that it would be the cutest things ever! I love the little trees, you make me want to go get cookie cutters. And the cake sounds heavenly with the little santa hats =) So simple too.

River, I am so glad I know you, because you really understand where I'm coming from! I wouldn't wish this struggle on anyone, but still it's nice to not be alone in my battle against the scale... plus, it could be worse; how can ya complain when the "prescription" to fight our low weights is to eat as much yummy food as we want?!

I wish I lived near you; then I could come over all the time and we could eat our body weights (and then some) in green pancakes!

All right, you have officially won the crafty award! I didn't think anyone could top your Halloweegan posts!!! Those Santa Hats are the cutest thing ever. I totally might have to put those on top of my favorite blondie recipe for an Xmas dessert. :)

My weight gain tip: drink extra water throughout the day, and it will soon get you used to expanding the size of your stomach. Then it's easier to fit more food in!!!

OMG! Those Santa hats are just adorable. But I like Santa's berries ... guess I'm naughtier than nice.

My family Xmas meal is actually breakfast. We all gather at my Granny's for a smorgasboard of breakfasty foods...I always bring my own tofu scramble, sausage, and stuff...and Granny veganizes as much as she can.

Oooh, you people who can't gain weight make me soooo jealous. grrr.... My mother is one of them, but I just didn't get those good genes, instead I got the dumpy short stature of my father, plus having 4 babies in 5 years doesn't help...

Even your "healthy" pancakes would make me gain weight! Though I make all permutations of yummy pancakes for my boys, it's just so hard to pass and say no!

You make me wish my house were in good enough condition for a holiday party so I could slave for days in the kitchen creating an avalanche of coconut sprinkled decadent goodness--but then the reality of having kids hits me, maybe in 5 years! And maybe by then I can handle gaining a few pounds again!

Santa's Berries are too cute! I have been out of the blogging loop for a few weeks, but am excited that I can give you more hat terminology! We call them "brims"!!! you are so clever with your treats! (Oh, and I did see that you tagged me on the 7things thing, but I've been crazy busy! I'll still get to it!)

river, i love your christmas tree pancakes!! i begged my mom to buy this huge case of clementines last week and nobody has been eating them haha she will be so happy that i'm using them. i will definitely make these sometime this week. i think i'm having muffin overkill haha jk (that could never happen).

you keep eating, girl!!! you're making great weight gain progress. if i could get away with eating cupcakes and delicious desserts all the time, i'd be in heaven. i bet your hubby loves it!

The coconut cake is my weekend project - it looks so amazing River! I don't think I will even have time to get the little santa hats on the cake, I am pretty sure I will gobble it up before I can attend to such details. :) Be well.

Your new banner looks great, as do your pancakes and santa hats!! Do you have any plans to make a gingerbread house? I really want to make one this year but I read on another blog that with vegan frosting it's hard to keep the walls together. Maybe some gingerbread cupcake houses?

Thank you for all the lovely comments and sorry about my non-blogging and non-commenting! All this eating has made me not want to see or read about anything food-related, but I'm taking a break from weight gain until Christmas so I'm back!

Jo, thank you so much for the award!! I am so honored, and you are the sweetest ever! I love that it's so international!

Stacey, I've been thinking about making a shortbread house instead. We'll see how that goes! :)

River, those santa hats are adorable and don't be discouraged by the slow weight gain - I think it's probably the same as when us big birds try to lose weight... slowly... painstakingly... s'hard however you look at it!

Welcome to Wing It Vegan! I am River and this blog is where I keep track of my favorite recipes. Hopefully you will find some new favorites here as well! Please, don't run away scared if you're not vegan! I promise I won't throw rotten beets or snarky judgments at you. MORE